Activity monitors have become popular as a tool for promoting exercise and a healthy lifestyle. In addition to keeping time, an activity monitor can include a wide variety of devices for providing biometric information, such as for example a pulse monitor for monitoring heart rate, and an accelerometer which can measure motions such as steps taken while walking or running to provide an estimate of an amount of calories used. Moreover, user-specific information such as age, gender, height and weight can be used to tailor the estimate to the user. Such monitors can be worn on the wrist or arm, for instance. The monitor can be worn during an intended workout period or as a general, all day, free living monitor, where the user may perform specific exercises at some times while going about their daily activities at other times, e.g., including sitting, standing and sleeping.
A typical monitor may be affixed to a wrist or arm with a pair of straps which fold around the wrist or arm, and then affix to each other with a clasp having mating portions on the respective straps. Often, a first strap will have holes along at least a portion of the length of the strap, and the second strap will have a pin which mates in one of the holes of the first strap. The straps may be adjusted for wrists and arms of different sizes by choosing to mate the pin within the appropriate hole along the length of the first strap.
It is known to provide detachable straps on these monitors. In one example, the monitor and strap may have a slot and mounting pin arrangement, for example with a mounting pin on the strap seated within a slot on the monitor. To detach the strap, the strap slides laterally transverse to the longitudinal axis of the device to remove the mounting pin from the slot.
One drawback to such a conventional pin and slot arrangement is that the strap may unintentionally slide laterally with respect to the monitor, for example when the wearer is exercising or the monitor is otherwise jolted. This can result in unintentional separation of the strap from the monitor and the device falling off the wearer's wrist.